Darn it - a sock's tale

I finally decided to take the time to attempt to darn my holey socks, well one of them at least. I remembered reading an article on how to do it on knitty.com. The article is in the summer '08 issue. I remember thinking the instructions were very clear. I assembled my repair kit, including a camera to document my experiment.

Smile for the camera!

Since I did not have a darning egg I used a GE lightbulb. You know they "bring good things to light", and I figured I would need all the help I could get. Yeah, I know that slogan is old so are my light bulbs.

I ran a set of yarn lines across the affected area. After having done this once I would now make those lines closer together. But after I try this on the next sock I may change my mind back to this set up, who knows.

I then ran another set of yarn lines perpendicular to the first set. See how the area closer to the back of the sock is fairly well filled in, but you can still see the lightbulb on the side closer to my thumb?

I switched back and forth running the yarn lines, trying to weave opposite to what I had done before. I got a little distracted by the show I was watching so I may have done one more pass in both directions than I really needed to. Again I'm not sure, only experience will tell me more. I figured it wore out once if I made it too thin it would be more likely to wear out again.

This is the inside of the sock. See how it puckers? I don't think it should be like that. I think I pulled too hard and pulled the fabric in.

It is even puckered on the foot as well.

The fabric looks and feels totally different than the knit fabric. The sock is off to the wash now so we will see if it really is darned. I worry that the puckered area will be uncomfortable under my foot.

So what did I learn? Run the lines closer together and don't pull the work too tightly. It took less yarn and time than I thought it would to repair the damage. I think it took about 3 feet of yarn and around 20-25 minutes. Not bad to get a sock back in the rotation, definitely less time than it took to knit them.

I still need to learn how to duplicate stitch so I can repair before the hole appears.

Oh and FYI I've been looking into what we will call here "bacteria bread" (see my last post).

Sounds like there are a couple of different/basic recipes on the internet. I think each author put out their method's basic recipe. I found one or two on YouTube also. Just look up no knead bread. I think I'm going to give it a try one of the weekends instead of my regular bread, or maybe in addition to my regular bread, since D eats bread like it is going out of style. I might help him with it too. I will keep you posted as to how it turns out or if I chicken out.